Stephen McQuigge

When he signed up to be an arborist, Stephen McQuigge knew he would be dealing with damage caused by a little green beetle known as the emerald ash borer. …”You can get it in your head, but not really get it with your heart until you start cutting everything down,” he told CBC News. “So, I knew it was coming, but it is discouraging to be in the middle of it and have to remove all these trees.” McQuigge is the superintendent of arboriculture with Grand River Conservation Area, which manages 30,000 acres of forest in southwestern Ontario. Of the estimated 500,000 ash trees in the forest, 14,000 are marked for the chopping block, because they have been infested by the emerald ash borer and pose a safety risk if they were to fall down of their own accord.